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Dalton Hampton, Little Miami, a senior in the Warren County Career Center HVAC Environmental Controls program, earned First Place at the 2014 SkillsUSA Ohio Championships in his Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration competition and is preparing for his national competition June 22.

Several business advisors for the HVAC program are assisting with the process, including Bennie Barnes, Director of Training at Habegger, who is meeting with Dalton to practice some advanced skills. Dalton is also job-shadowing with the lead service technician at Robinson Heating one day per week to gain more on-the-job experience. His instructor, Deon Gephart, is arranging for him to experience geothermal work with a local company, too.

“I am excited about competing on the national level,” Dalton said. “I need to really work on static pressure in particular, but I am pretty confident overall about my abilities.”

WCCC is acquiring some new tools that will be needed for competition at the national level, including air velocity and air static pressure meters, and micron, water column and magnehelic gauges.

“This program is one of the fortunate ones in career-tech schools that can do outside projects,” Mr. Barnes said. “It’s a good program; their biggest issue is that they need more lab space. But, they can get out and work on real job sites, which really benefits the community and benefits the students.”

The 50th annual SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference will be held in Kansas City June 23-27.